Oso Closo

thats it.

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two blogs in one night? why not. our call isn’t until 2 tomorrow. 

so this year i have been really into the Olympics. i always have been in previous years, but for whatever reason i am drawn in for beijing. i like the pomp, dramatic music, and the hilarious bob costas. i also have a quasi crush on alicia sacramone. i watch the rebroadcast from 1-4 am. i just finished watching the men’s 200 meter race. the big story was this jamaican usain bolt (that would be like if chris’ last name was Shreddington) setting a new world record. on a side note, cool runnings is my favorite movie. it’s about these jamaican runners who don’t make it to the olympics for running because they all tripped each other in the finals. but then john candy comes along and persuades them to go to the winter olympics as a bobsled team. i know i know, who ever thought of a bobsled team from jamaica? that’s why this movie is so funny. i highly recommend it. 

anyway, aside from usain bolt, the bigger story to me, one of heartbreak, was the disqualification of two runners, walter spearmon (usa) and churandy martina of the netherlands. these two guys finished with times that awarded them the silver and bronze but were later disqualified because their foot touched the inside lane line, “leaving their lane.” so, these guys technically won the race, but were thrown out because of some trivial rule. so you see these two celebrating after the race with their flags around their heads in classic olympic style. i can’t even imagine the feeling. and then someone with a clipboard and headset comes up to spearmon and tells him he’s been dq’d. churandy was dq’d hours later after the tape was reviewed. americans shawn crawford and walter dix were bumped up into silver and bronze, respectively. but what are these guys to think? dix said “well, i still lost..”

my god, am i glad to be in an activity without scores, winners, losers, and disqualifications. i played baseball for several years and was pretty good for a while, but then quit when i realized that i wasn’t that great after all. i needed to be involved with something where i could express myself and be unique. how can you work your entire life to perfect what you love to do and advance yourself to your maximum potential only to see that some dude from another country can do it better than you? or to be disqualified from a race you ran really well because of a goofy rule. now, i realize that the optimum athlete’s mentality should be that of personal best mattering over final rule, winning or losing. but even if you can get your mind into that positive space, there is still a loser at the end of the day, and that probably just sucks, no matter what. 

the crazy thing is that some musicians actually have the mindset of a sports competitor. guys who value chops over tasteful expression, “i can play this many notes in three seconds” vs. musical use of space, and thinking that winning a guitar center drum-off means anything, these concepts are just so ridiculous and immature to me. these guys might be better suited as athletes. “but hey ryan, what about the grammys? those are like the musical olympics, right?” yeah…not so much. winning a grammy just means you’ve sold a whole bunch of records. now, granted, obviously good music usually sells lots of records, but if you’ve ever watched the grammys, you know that it’s not really about good music. it’s mostly about image, money, sex, financial success, etc. 

in conclusion, i’d rather not have to wait until every four years to validate my success and prove my talent to the world. i feel like a gold medalist every night i play with my band. holy crap, that was extremely cheesy. but, you know what? sometimes the conclusions of great blogs are like the conclusions of classic and hilarious movies, a little bit cheesy, but the rich content of the whole overcomes the cliche and predictable ending. man, cool runnings is just the BEST. definitely rent it if you haven’t already seen it.

from ryan

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so whenever we record our next album, the plan is to do it at this sweet beach house my parents own in long beach, indiana. this is special to me because ive spent summers there since before i can remember. taking a couple week band vacation/recording project trip would be relaxing and and beneficial to the music. i feel the group could make the most badass record if we had a totally relaxing, focused, shut-out-the-world and make some music recording vacation. the idea is to bring out our friend jason cupp, who remixed our first record, from california and setup a home recording studio with rented gear. the parents are totally on board which makes it even cooler. i hope this happens sooner than later.

tommy is a  rockin. i need to learn not to get excited and play so darn fast. the choreography of joel ferrell is to this production as chocolate is to peanut butter - totally awesome and it you don’t like it, you are insane. 

from ryan

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new ray lamontagne song up on his myspace. his new record is coming out soon. he’s doing his first american tour, maybe ever. i’m not sure. coming to dallas. sold out. and i’ll be on tour. its hard for me to express the weight of not going to this concert. when i was in high school i got in line for weezer tickets on the pinkerton tour. i got there early, got in line, and waited. i was the guy who got told ” sorry we just sold out.” the first guy in the line to get denied. i thought my world was crumbling to peices.  looking back at that experience is bittersweet. pinkerton was not only the latest great work from weezer at the time, but proved to be the finest of the work that they have done. i missed the peak. which in some ways is depressing but i’d really like to think that being in on the ground floor is even more satisfying. now, naturally i’m not in on the ground floor of ray lamontagne’s career. he’s gained all kinds of critical acclaim worldwide. but what he hasn’t really even come close to doing, is the very thing that he is destined to do. which of course, is to become one of the most legendary songwriters of all time. perhaps in sort of a leonard cohen kind of way. but definitely in the “recognized as the genius that he is after his death” sort of way. his relatively young but immensely powerful body of work is already poised to be the death of me. check him out if you haven’t yet. he will drive you to a new level of gutwrenching melancholy. but i mean that in a really good way.

now on a lighter note. we did the designer run through tonight. it was a lot of fun. definitely some wrong notes on the piano happening but all is well. i’m having a blast with this. its so much fun. everyone is fantastic. and i’m fully in brainstorm mode with regard to the oso musical. oh yes, it will be. and it will be ridiculous. so massive that no man can comprehend. i don’t even know where to start. you know i’m gonna have to deliver if i’m talking it up this early. so just keep your eyes out over the next several years. this is the new big project. i’ll keep you posted.

love,

adrian

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So I just heard that we might be playing some shows with this band from Nashville called Parachute Musical. They are a totally awesome band that would be fitting with us musically on a bill. After some webbing I deducted these freakish similarities to Oso:

1. A similar piano/pop sound with good hooks and vocals.

2. They have a driving piano song in 6 in which the first words describe not having any new ideas. We have one of those too.

3. There’s videos of them conducting strings and horns in the studio for their latest recording. That’s like, what we plan to do for the next one. And what Chris did for the first record.

4. The drummer’s name is Ben Jacoby. My name is Ryan Jacobi.

5. Some people think our girl face logo is a bit creepy. Maybe, but something that is also creepy is a sad teddy bear with a bullet hole through it.

6. Exceptional good looks.

Looking forward to meeting and playing with these guys

1 Comment » Posted by jacobi / Uncategorized

so we’ve been busy bees the last couple of weeks. sorry for the long wait on new posts. we’re seriously really tired all the time. we’re also getting all of the final stuff done for the remix/remaster/repress cd dvd combo. so thats a bunch of stuff as well.

so we’re a little more than two thirds of the way through the show in terms of learnin tunes and staging them and cool stuff like that. its pretty much the most badass thing of all time. everybody involved is ridiculously good at doing what they do and we’re having a lot of fun and making friends with lots of really amazing people. here are some photo’s i’ll definitely post more soon. but here’s a little taste of the goods…

the amazing chris flynn doing rad new art for our record.

the kalita humphreys stage. without set. its pretty sweet.

mcqueen, lindsey, and andy staging for some tune.

mcqueen on top of the pinball machine. jealous.

the lovely emily habeck chillin with some osos

the amazing betsy wolfe reading a magazine about how to cope with being a super famous person.

the one and only gregory lush. possibly pissed. don’t think so though.

oh yeah and andy got a new tattoo yesterday.

love,

adrian

1 Comment » Posted by adrian / Uncategorized